Search

With my trip to California getting closer I thought it would be a good time to post Arwyn’s video diary. It is all in Welsh but don’t worry if you can’t speak it…it’s pretty self explanatory and possibly at good starting point for learning it! Arwyn, Tomsk and Trawler did a couple of weeks in California in 2002 and Arwyn made a video diary that was shown on S4C. I recently got a tape of the programme from Tomsk so I digitised it tonight and here is the California section. They went to a ton of skateparks and searched out the legendary Mount Baldy fullpipe. I have put the idea of a similar mission to Twiss and he seems well up for it, we are hoping to get a few clues to it’s location from this video….otherwise I will just ask Tomsk for directions on Thursday.

This film was taken by Ron ‘Milk’ Williams in 1978 in South Africa. I first got in contact with Ron through Paul Conibear. Con plays a major role in the story of skateboarding in Swansea. Through conversations with Con i discovered there were several chances to get some actual film of skateboarding in the 70’s, I had already found some photographs through Con and Frenchy and located some good material in Skateboard! Magazine. Film though was a different matter but i had been lucky with video from the early 80’s so anything was possible. Con remembered going on filming trips with legendary surfer and film maker Rod Sumpter but that avenue closed as the films of Con hadn’t survived the years.
Another friend of Con’s was Ron Williams who now lives in Australia, originally from Porthcawl Ron had filmed the local surf scene in the 70’s but had also filmed Con’s skating too. Best of all the films had survived and Ron was more than willing to send them over to be used in Over Ply Wood. I couldn’t believe my luck, film of 70’s skating in Swansea and as it turns out in London, Cornwall and Europe too!! The films arrived and i went over to Porthcawl to collect them from a friend of Ron’s.
Not only was there plenty of 70’s skateboarding on the 4 400ft reels of film there was a ton of surfing too. The film below is the South Africa trip. Loads of the actual surfing but also beach shots of the U.K. team members, a parade through town of all the competing teams, evidence of apartheid with signs on the beach for whites only….this was before everyone really started to take notice of the crimes taking place in South Africa and the international boycotts started to gain mainstream acceptance. So a historic piece on many levels.
Thanks again to Ron Williams for his films and Mark Knights for a great job on digitising them. More clips to follow soon.